Henry Payne Blog

The age of the performance SUV is upon us. Porsche, Jaguar, Alfa — even Lamborghini! — put the “sport” in sport utility vehicle. They come with heavy-breathing marketing materials claiming these five-door rhinos bring sedan-like moves to the ute class.

The razor-sharp, toned ATS danced rings around the Alfa. The Cadillac begs to be spun around the rumba studio. The Italian ute? Slow the music down a bit, please.

Yet, when I step back from these two luxury partners, the SUV’s overall benefits are hard to deny. Driving-obsessed motorheads like me aside, we are ute nation. It’s no wonder that Alfa — that legendary crafter of the T33 Stradale Prototipo and V8 Montreal — chose to introduce its second U.S. volume vehicle as an SUV. And it’s no wonder that Cadillac is scrambling to complement its lone crossover entry, the XT-5, with s new XT-4 and XT-6 this year.

I was honestly surprised at how pedestrian the Alfa felt next to the ATS. The Stelvio, after all, is based on the same Giorgio architecture as the Giulia sedan which is neck-and-neck with the ATS for best compact athlete. The Alfa siblings share engines, gearboxes, even independent, multi-link suspensions. And the Stelvio costs 10 grand more than the ATS with similar amenities.

The Stelvio is as good as it gets in compact SUVs. Like the Porsche Macan and Jaguar F-Sport and BMW X2 (and, while we’re at it, the terrific, premium-wannabe Mazda CX-5) it is fun to drive, balanced on corner turn-in.

But the ATS is an Olympian.

You know this is a different animal as soon as you turn the wheel. The ATS fits like a tennis shoe, changing directions as quickly as Seth Curry. Heading north on Telegraph Road, I take the long way home through Oakland County’s twisty lake country. I push the Sport mode button for a throatier soundtrack to match my mood, stomp the throttle, and enjoy the quick, buttery, eight-speed tranny.

It reminds me of the first time I drove the Cadillac in rural Connecticut, sprinting over hills and never putting a foot wrong.

Its Alpha chassis (that’s Alpha with a “ph”) was bred to compete against Germany’s finest at the highest levels. Drop in a twin-turbo V-6, slap on some Michelin Super Sports, and the ATS-V performance model can go toe-to-toe against a BMW M3 around any track. It was part of Cadillac’s rebirth as a performance brand as it threw an army at the Teutons: Cadillac CTS-V, CT6 large sedans, CT6 plug-in hybrid.

So good is the Alpha chassis that GM also built the Chevy Camaro on it, which not only gave the Camaro bragging rights over the Ford Mustang — but made the Camaro competitive with BMW’s M4 coupe, for goodness sake.

Trouble is, customers wanted SUVs.

“People want to ride up high for better visibility. And SUVs also give them all-wheel drive and five-door utility,” says IHS senior analyst Steph Brinley.

Cadillac only offered one — the XT5 — and the Germans offered dozens. Alfa watched, learned and introduced Stelvio within a year of the Giulia. Stelvio sales have been slow out of the box, selling two-thirds as many units as the sedan. But give it time. Caddy’s lone XT5 outsells the ATS 5-to-1 — and it’s not even based on the same rear-wheel drive skeleton (it shares its bones with the front-wheel-drive GMC Acadia).

Jump in the Stelvio and it’s not immediately obvious why an SUV would outsell a sedan. Like its compact car counterparts, the backseat is small and its coupe-like styling negates the fundamental hatchback design advantage by squashing my 6-foot-5 frame into the ceiling.

Then it started to snow.

The white stuff negated all of the handling advantages of the ATS. My rear-wheel drive ATS couldn’t make it up my driveway. The Alfa climbed it like Sir Edmund Hillary.

The Stelvio comes standard with all-wheel drive — but four-wheelin’ is an option on the ATS which would bring its price to $52,000 (and make it even quicker to 60 mph with the added traction). That’s still $4,000 shy of the Alfa. But the average consumer has already signed the sedan divorce papers.

The standard all-wheel drive Stelvio rides higher for better visibility. It has nearly double the rear cargo space (18 cubic feet) compared to the Caddy’s 10. And then there’s the Alfa engine.

Most drivers don’t know an apex from a cortex — but they know how to mash a throttle out of a stoplight. Here the Alfa shines. Its 280-horsepower turbo-4 had just five more horsepower and 10 more pound-feet of torque than the Cadillac, but it feels like more. The Stelvio also feels smoother in the high-rev ranges where the Caddy shouts, sounding more like a mainstream four-banger than a luxury chariot.

More telling, fuel efficiency is almost identical despite the Alfa weighing some 500 pounds more than the sedan and lugging around all-wheel drive. That’s impressive — and also indicative of the leap that SUVs have made to become more competitive with cars. These aren’t your grandad’s gas-guzzling light trucks.

Or call it the VW Golf R, one of my favorite hot hatches that combines the best of the sedan/ute worlds: hatchback (with 4 more cubic feet of cargo room than the Stelvio), a 2.0-liter turbo-4 (with 12 more horsepower than the Alfa), low center of gravity, monster brakes, lightweight (700 pounds lighter than Stelvio), all-wheel drive for snow and grip (a half-second quicker to 60 mph than the luxe twins), 25 mpg (same as the ATS), plus standard leather and safety systems.

And a loaded Golf R costs just $41,000 — 5,000 grand south of an ATS and $15,000 cheaper than the Stelvio. It’s a bargain.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne. Catch “Car Radio with Henry Payne” from noon-1 p.m. Saturdays on 910 AM Superstation.

When I couldn’t make it to the Audi TT RS media test at Lime Rock race track last summer, I was bummed. I read report after report about the nimble TT’s raspy five-banger at full throttle around the challenging Connecticut race track.

“It’s an easy little car to toss and place with precision,” wrote Car and Driver. “Putting the power down on exit is easy with the quattro system deciding where to send torque,” thrilled Autoweek. “The Audi devours straight lines with a manic burble, and grips hard in high-speed turns,” raved Motor1.com.

But none of them got to do doughnuts in driving snow.

My TT RS tester arrived in my driveway in January in the teeth of Michigan winter. Day after chilling day of single-digit temps. Icicles longer than hockey sticks hanging off my roof. Even local Sierra Club groupies are burning their copies of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” for warmth. A sports car?

I had put my sports-car fantasies into hibernation two months previous. This time of year I crave all-wheel drive — not for quick zero-60 launches, but to get me through snow drifts. Indeed, local sports-car test fleets usually fly south for the winter with the geese so they can frolic on warm asphalt and wink their headlights at cute beach bunnies.

The Audi TT RS’s coupe profile comes with an added wing and long hatchback. First generation TTs suffered from high speed lift caused by a shape that too closely resembled an aircraft wing. (Photo: Henry Payne / The Detroit News)

Yet here was a ferocious, sporty coupe in my driveway covered in snow.

I’m no stranger to the TT as readers of this column know. I took the base 220-horse, 2.0-liter turbo-4 car — little different from the RS save the insane, 400-horsepower, rally-derived, five-cylinder hornet’s nest under the hood and a wing out back — straight to Hell a couple of years back and had devilish fun on the best roads in Michigan.

But in January Hell freezes over. Ain’t going there. Which is OK, because the closest parking lot is all you need to enjoy a TT in winter.

Along with Tesla, the Audi TT offers one of the most innovative dash layouts in the industry. Information is centered in a 12-inch cockpit display while the center console infotainment screen disappears altogether. (Photo: Audi)

The Audi TT offers surprising utility courtesy of a large rear hatch that can swallow plenty of luggage. (Photo: Photos by Henry Payne / The Detroit News)

I hit my favorite empty neighborhood lot, spinning like a top. TT’s taut chassis and short wheelbase make it more playful than the odd SUV I usually take out for snow doughnuts.

This has never appealed to me before in other performance rear-wheel drive cars. My old Porsche 944? Tucked away in storage until spring. My favorite BMW M3? Same. The Audi even has me rethinking my rear-wheel drive Tesla Model 3 order.

The Tesla also comes in an all-wheel drive variant, but I checked the box for rear-wheel drive — both because Tesla might not deliver all-wheel drive versions of the Model 3 until my hair’s grown white, and that I like the lightweight, tossable handling of rear-wheel drive.

The TT opens new worlds as an all-season plaything.

Audi’s innovative, 12.3-inch “Virtual Cockpit” display is rich with information – including infotainment options so the driver never has to be diverted to the center console. The display is operated entirely by steering wheel buttons -though a passenger can also operate it from a center sole rotary dial. (Photo: Henry Payne / The Detroit News)

Audi, along with spartan Tesla, is the most innovative automaker when it comes to re-imagining the dashboard. The TT has a big, 12.3-inch “Virtual Cockpit” instrument display entirely configurable from the steering wheel: gauge placement, radio channels, navigation, the works.

The driver-oriented display clears out the center console for a clean, aesthetically pleasing dash anchored by huge, aviation-style air vents controlled with a twist of their rotary rims or a tap on their center temp controls. Slick. With the console screen gone, the only thing left of an infotainment system is Audi’s familiar rotary console knob. I never touched it.

It’s there for passengers like my wife to use when she wants to spin the dial to her favorite radio station. So big is the Virtual Cockpit display behind the steering wheel that she can easily see the station lists.

After my daily playground calisthenics, the TT RS and I took Mrs. Payne for a night on the (frigid) town. As beautiful as the Audi’s Nvidia graphics chip-driven navigation display may be, its search function is not as intuitive as Tesla’s smartphone-like Google Maps system. I couldn’t just bark the name of our restaurant at the car — I had to first look it up on my Samsung, then bark the exact address at the car. Smartphones: never leave home without ’em.

Despite its 2+2 seating design, the TT is not a car for double-dating. Like the similarly-priced rear-wheel drive Camaro and Mustang V-8 coupes — or the much pricier Porsche 911 — TT’s back seat is for storage only. Or maybe for misbehaving children. Roald Dahl’s the Trunchbull might have used it.

Matilda! I’m putting you in the Chokey — no, make that the TT back seat!

The Audi TT RS’s Continental ContiWinterContact tires are excellent in snow – though the low profile, 19-inch wheels can be nicked on a curb if you’re not careful. (Photo: Henry Payne / The Detroit News)

That roomy Tesla Model 3 back seat sounds appealing, by contrast, but the 3 does not come with big brother Model S’s hatchback. The TT does. The wee Audi started life with a symmetrical front-to-rear wing shape (an aerodynamic development that also had unforeseen, um, flying consequences, but I digress). But with the second generation, saner heads prevailed and Audi’s hatch grew longer into its current wonderful, utilitarian shape.

This, in my opinion, is the TT snow leopard’s other key ingredient given its sibling competitors, Porsche and VW.

As good as its chassis shared with the Volkswagen Golf may be, the TT can’t hold a candle to the $60,000 Porsche Boxster/Cayman in the handling department. The Porsche is an athlete without peer under $100,000.

But with the engine amidships, the Porsche lacks the front-engine TT’s hatchback roominess — not to mention its all-wheel drive dexterity. Throw in the RS (for rocket ship) 5-cylinder mill and the TT RS is a compelling alternative for a similar $60,000. For the more aesthetically minded, the hatch also makes the base TT compelling against a similarly priced — if very boxy — all-wheel drive Golf R hatch.

By week’s end the weather gods gave us a brief thaw between deep freezes. The respite let me do a couple of zero-60 launch control runs in the TT RS just like my buddies enjoyed in Lime Rock: the seven-speed tranny barked off shifts, the 5-holer screaming like a possessed buzz-saw to 7,000 rpms.

Happy at zero degrees or zero-60 launches: That’s all-wheel drive bandwidth. When I shut down my salt-caked Audi TT it would make a signature, heartbeat chime: BUM-BUM.

An echo of my racing heartbeat.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne. Catch “Car Radio with Henry Payne” from noon-1 p.m. Saturdays on 910 AM Superstation.

Buick calls the five-door version of its Buick Regal a “crossover with car-like driver characteristics.” The Environmental Protection Agency calls it a station wagon, and millennials say it’s a hatchback. The badge says it’s a TourX. I call it gorgeous.

The long-awaited stunner finally brings Detroit onto the premium crossover-wagon catwalk alongside European beauties like the $45,475 Audi Allroad and $52,300 Volvo V90 Cross Country. Not surprisingly, the design comes courtesy of General Motors’ European Opel/Vauxhall sisters that have a knack for sexy wagons (across the pond, the TourX is badged the Insignia Country Tourer). Surprisingly, it debuts here as a Buick, the once-dowdy seniors brand that has transformed from ugly duckling to swan.

SwanX. Yeah, let’s call it that.

It’s not only the most bodacious-looking Buick in a long while, but the $29,995 wagon rivals its expensive European competition in looks while trouncing them in utility. In Americanizing the Insignia for us Yanks, nothing has been lost in translation. Indeed, the crossover effect improves on the Regal Sportback sedan (built alongside the X in Russelsheim, Germany) I reviewed earlier this year. Like mascara on Gal Gadot, the charcoal body-cladding enhances Regal’s naturally attractive features. Fascia makeup helps the eyes — er, headlights — stand out. Fender highlights tone TourX’s long flanks. And then there’s that hatch.

Ohhhh, the hatch. As I photographed the TourX, I kept returning to its profile. It’s like a 150-foot yacht sailing by that you can’t take your eyes off.

The Regal Sportback is pretty, but based on a front-wheel drive platform, its stunted front can’t compete against long-hooded rear-wheel drive models. TourX designers have pulled its rear deck waaaay back to here, so that — despite the same dash-to-axle proportions as Sportback — the wagon looks like it’s resting on its haunches.

For emphasis, a chrome roofline arcs over the narrow greenhouse and doesn’t stop until the taillights. It’s punctuated by chrome tailpipe tips embedded in the rear fascia.

The exquisite tailoring hides acres of interior room.

Kick your foot under the bumper, and the automatic hatch opens, revealing a cavernous, 73.5-cubic-foot cargo hold that beats the Audi, Volvo, and even a three-row Acura MDX ute (68 cubes). I know — I stuffed 25 athletic bags into the back of the Buick — six more than Allroad holds.

This is the wagon that didn’t exist when Mrs. Payne and I were shopping to replace our Ford Taurus wagon in 2008. Taurus was kaput, as were most mid-size wagons amidst a rush to utes. Sporty luxury-wagons were all that was left — and their price tags were too big, their confines too small for our family of four.

Reluctantly, we crossed over to crossovers and the first Chrysler Pacifica, a lovely (if reliability challenged) SUV. I can’t say I was ever tempted to carve a corner in the higher-riding Pacifica.

Buick’s savvy product-marketing has already rescued its nearly forgotten brand. Saved in GM’s bankruptcy by the Chinese market, Buick has radically transformed its portfolio here by thinking outside the box. Near-death experiences will do that for you.

The Enclave was one of the first three-row SUVs. It was followed by the pioneering Encore cute-ute. The Encore filled the “white space” in a market where emptynesters were downsizing from, well, Enclaves, yet didn’t want to go back to sedans. Especially Buick sedans with “has-been” stamped on their foreheads.

Buick thinks it’s found that white space with the TourX. While young families will still gravitate to Buick’s utes, X marks the spot for orphans, emptynesters and outdoors people who value handling and style.

I tested the TourX in that outdoor mecca, Sedona, Arizona. There’s not a lot of white space here. Surrounded by towering pillars of red rock, the Arizona town is one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. My red TourX fit right in.

True off-roaders will opt for Jeep Wranglers in this rugged environment, but with its sophisticated all-wheel drive system, low roof (the better for wee Mrs. Payne to fetch things from) and cavernous cargo-hold, the TourX will appeal to many.

The same applies in Michigan winters. Other than riding high, all-wheel drive has been a primary attraction for SUVs in grisly weather. All-wheel drive comes standard on TourX, along with a host of other goodies like roof rails, 18-inch wheels and cruise control.

I pounded across Arizona Route 152 — looking up at red rock skyscrapers through the X’s full-length sunroof — turning the traction control off for all-wheel drifts through switchbacks. At 3,708 pounds, the TourX is less than 100 pounds heavier and less than an inch higher than the Regal Sportback. For all its crossover cladding, its handling says sedan. I tried taking it farther off-road, but this is no Subaru Outback or Volvo Cross Country — both of which have been jacked to more ute-like heights. Stick to dirt, not rocks.

Lighter than the Audi All Road by 100 pounds, the TourX is nicely motivated by GM’s workhorse, 2.0-liter turbo-4 mated to a smooth, 8-speed box. A healthy 295 pound-feet of torque — 20 more than the Audi — comes in early (the Buick only revs to 6,500 rpms) like you want for a cargo-hauler.

Determined to compete with its higher-priced peers, Buick’s engineers labored to make the TourX whisper-quiet. “We’re doing 100 miles per hour?” exclaimed a colleague as I mashed the throttle on Interstate 17. The quiet interior never betrayed the higher speed.

Buick’s cheaper sticker-price is evident only when you’re inside the cabin.

The layout is nice but uninspired. The monotone black dash of my loaded, $41,550 tester lacked the personality of the exterior. The spacious console has but one USB port. Visors lack extenders for the long side windows exposed to the sun. The TourX doesn’t have GM’s innovative heads-up display, despite similar features that are included on cheaper, mainstream models like Honda’s Accord. Even GM’s progressive connectivity was slow here with Android Auto slow to engage.

Having built an architectural masterpiece, Buick seems to want to see if the house sells before fully decorating all the rooms. But a showpiece it is. Like a Frank Lloyd Wright home with poorly lit hallways, its missteps can be fixed retroactively.